In a medical facility such as a hospital, clinic or doctor's office, the creation and maintenance of patient files is critical to recording vital data and history of a patients treatment. Patient files include patient identifying information as well as a variety of health care data associated with the patient. Identifying information is routinely taken at intake of a patient and typically includes, for example, name, age, sex and insurance information, which is used to establish the base file for the patient. In addition, routine health care data such as temperature, pulse, blood pressure and the like are typically hand recorded at or near intake and included in a hard-copy paper file. The file is typically physically transferred to a patient examination room where further health care data and notes may be entered by a health care provider and manually recorded into the file.
If the patient is to be admitted to a hospital, an identification bracelet is typically created to be worn on the patient's wrist for follow-up care, and the patient's file is transferred to the patient's bedside. At the bedside, the file is manually updated upon periodic visits by a physician or nurse who manually records notes and other health care data into the file. Prescription and diagnosis information is also recorded in the file. In instances before or after a significant medical procedure such as birth or surgery, basic vital signs such as temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, oximetry, electrocardiogram (ECG) or other data pertaining the patient's body may be continuously monitored during the patient's stay. Specialized semi-portable monitoring instruments for obtaining and monitoring this type of health care data are part of a hospital's inventory of equipment that is assigned to individual patients on an as-needed basis and rolled into a patient's room on carts or roller stands. A large variety of semi-portable monitors are commercially provided by numerous manufacturers and distributors.
Fully portable devices that do not require a cart or stand are also commercially available. One example of a fully portable data health care data device provided by WelchAllyn is the SPOT VITAL SIGNS™ device that allows a health care provider to take non-invasive blood pressure, pulse, oximetry, and arterial pressure data, and which may be configured with a printer for recording the data. On routine visits, or “rounds,” hard copy recordings of health care data obtained from such devices may be periodically printed and included in the files to create a vital signs history. Alternatively, the health care provider may manually record such data in the file with time and date information.
In the past, day-to-day patient intake and monitoring information was exclusively hand recorded in a paper file by a variety of health care provider personnel. Today, health care institutions are increasingly moving toward recording health care information in electronic patient files rather than in hard-copy files. In typical electronic file systems, patient files are maintained on a centralized computer system and patient information and health care data are entered from a variety of distributed smart terminals positioned in intake rooms, examination rooms and hospital rooms. The smart terminals serve as a substitute for the hard copy files, permitting the variety of health care providers to enter and display a variety of health care information from a variety of locations without need for physically transferring the hard copy file.
Another improvement in recent years is that monitoring devices have been equipped with telemetry equipment to wirelessly upload health care data through a network of receivers that are positioned remotely from the monitors. In certain situations, such as with ambulatory patients requiring continuous monitoring of specific vital signs, or with ambulance patients being transported to a hospital under emergency situations, small, portable monitors with self-contained power and data telemetry units are used to continuously record and transmit health care data to a centralized computer system. Commercially available examples of such portable monitors are exemplified by the Micropaq™ and Propaq™ monitors provided by WelchAllyn. These monitors display ECG waveforms, heart rate, invasive or non-invasive blood pressure, temperature, pulse oximetry and respiratory data. In certain optional configurations, these devices can wirelessly transmits such data over a local area wireless radio frequency network (FlexNet™). In other optional configurations, data assimilated by the monitors may be transmitted via infrared data transmission.
While the provision of centralized electronic patient record files and portable health care data monitors equipped with telemetry options has improved the ease and efficiency of collecting, transmitting and storing health care data, there remains a need in the art to equip a health care provider with options for integrating the collected data with patient identification information, and for providing for additional types of data that can be collected using an inexpensive and fully portable device.